I finally realized the children would not stop screaming in terror until the SWAT team stopped screaming and pointing guns at us, so I left my baby wailing on the couch unattended and laid down on the floor while my other three boys kept screaming and crying and calling me. They handcuffed me behind my back with garbage ties and handcuffs and I told my 7 year old to call his grandma, but the SWAT team said no one would be calling anyone and told him not to touch the phone. I called my children to come beside me and touch me and hold me so they would not be scared anymore, but they told them to stay on the couch. I screamed some more profanities at the SWAT team and ordered the children to come to me and kept ordering them to come to me until they finally did disobey the men and laid down beside me crying. I heard my husband scream from the front hall, and I yelled his name and told him to do as they said.  I never heard him again, nor saw him (until I went to visit him in jail). When I finally soothed the children and reassured them everything would be ok, they stopped crying but were still horribly frightened. They brought out my 63 year old mother-in-law and sat her by my head. She was also bound by garbage ties and handcuffs behind her back. (They had entered her bedroom while she was praying her ‘Asr, she was in sujud in the last rakah, when a SWAT member put his boot on the back of her neck, and put a gun to her head. He pushed her down farther into the floor, rolled her over and put her hands behind her back and handcuffed her. She doesn't even speak English....). Of course, when I saw her handcuffs, more profanities and insults flew from my mouth, (may Allah forgive my impatience).

I demanded my hijab. More screaming and profanities. They put on my hijab and I began demanding they take off my handcuffs and let me nurse my screaming baby. They tried to lift me by one arm, but I continued to sit and said "I weigh over 250 pounds and I have a bad back. Man, you better get another guy on my other arm!" They took us (me, the children and my mother in law) to the back yard and let me nurse the baby. They asked me if there was anywhere they could take us, like a friend or neighbor’s house while they searched our home.  I told them, “Are you crazy, do you think I would terrorize my friends by taking YOU to their house?”  We waited in the back yard for hours for them to complete some paperwork, and check our identifications.  It was getting close to Maghrib, and the mosquitos were coming out, the babies were not properly dressed for evening.  I begged and demanded and begged for a few items, a Jilbab for my mother in law, diaper bag for the babies, a jug of goat milk for the toddler and some money from the house.  I got most of what I asked for but they refused to give me the house money (they only allowed me $25.00) nor would they give me the children's pillows and sleeping bags, even though I informed them we were going to the mosque to wait for them to finish.  They assured and reassured me many times that I would not need much, they would be finished in an hour or so, but I didn’t believe them.  I told them I need something other than a carpeted floor for the children to sleep on, but they refused my demands.  I thought they were going to drive us to the mosque, but they just set us out past the back fence.  When I realized we had to walk at Maghrib, I demanded my stroller from the back of my car.  More arguing followed as they hadn’t searched the car yet, but I got the double stroller for the babies.  It was beginning to rain and the front bonnet was missing to protect my toddler from the rain.  Again I demanded the police officer go back to the car and retrieve it, even though he insisted the car was being taken away already.  I threatened to go to the front of the house myself, and take it out of the car, in plain view of the neighbors and media that had gathered, so he retrieved the bonnet for me finally and we walked quickly to the Masjid, (none of us had been allowed to enter the house to use the washroom, not even the children). After a long night of calling the RCMP and OPP offices and finally screaming at someone at 4 am “You’d better arrest me or shoot me cause I’m coming home!!”, they finally let us in the house at 6 am the next day.

Over the following days, my husband got a message to me to reach his old mentor and teacher in Pakistan, Dr. Israr Ahmed and ask him to make dua’ for him.  As I attempted to phone him explaining what had happened and to ask him to make dua’, and request him to tell the people that “The wife of Abdul Qayyum Jamal has not and will not speak to the media.”, (the Pakistani papers had already begun to blame me and accuse me of talking too much to the news, and I was afraid they would scandalize his family in Pakistan). Dr. Ahmed asked me to fax my request as it was difficult for him to hear me on the phone.  I had tried to send it from home, but it wouldn’t transmit so I went to Kinko’s to fax from there.  While sitting at a table rewriting the note with marker, the computers in the store began to crash, first one and then another.  I asked the attendant if the fax was reliant on the computers and he said no.  I asked him to fax my note to Pakistan, and he quickly returned it with a confirmation letter.